I Lost Control Over My Body

Asked by sabrinahgl on 2018-05-8 with 1 answer:

Last night something happened that I’ve never gone through. Me in my bf were in my car and I was mad and frustrated with him(remind you the day before was one of my worst days because I almost broke up with him) so I became so stressed and aggravated. He told me to relax and I slowly started to become light headed and eventually I wasn’t able to move. I felt completely soulless. I wasn’t able to feel anymore and I couldn’t talk. Even my bf said I looked dead it took about 2 hours for me to slowly start moving and talking. I remember I was able to see and hear everything but I couldn’t do anything. Eventually I became very scared of what was going on to me and I started crying and he told me it might be a way that my body just shut down so I wasn’t able to feel anymore. I feel like God did this to me so I can finally relax, but I don’t know. Can you please give me the answers ? (From the USA)

Of course I cannot say for certain, but this type of dissociation and psychic numbing can, indeed, happen during times of stress. It sounds like that moment was particularly intense.

I would recommend a full physical exam by your physician to check yourself out medically. This is important so that you don’t explore psychological treatment for something that may have a physical origin. Depending on the results you can either explore medical or psychological methods of relief.

In the meantime if you have not done any yoga, exercise or meditating I would encourage you to sample these. If there are helpful ways of coping with stress — these are the ones.

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Daniel J. Tomasulo, PhD, TEP, MFA, MAPP

Dan Tomasulo Ph.D., TEP, MFA, MAPP teaches Positive Psychology in the graduate program of Counseling and Clinical Psychology at Columbia University, Teachers College and works with Martin Seligman, the Father of Positive Psychology in the Masters of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) program at the University of Pennsylvania. He is Director of the New York Certification in Positive Psychology for the Open Center in New York City and on faculty at New Jersey City University. Sharecare has honored him as one of the top 10 online influencers on the topic of depression. For more information go to: http://www.dare2behappy.com/. He also writes for Psych Central's Ask the Therapist column and the Proof Positive blog.

APA Reference Tomasulo, D. (2018). I Lost Control Over My Body. Psych Central.
Retrieved on September 15, 2019, from https://psychcentral.com/ask-the-therapist/2018/01/18/i-lost-control-over-my-body/

Last updated: 8 May 2018Last reviewed: By a member of our scientific advisory board on 8 May 2018Published on Psych Central.com. All rights reserved.